drug-discovery-platform
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Quanta Therapeutics
Quanta Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in South San Francisco building allosteric small-molecule inhibitors for RAS-driven cancers. Using a proprietary Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) optical platform that detects subtle changes in protein conformation, Quanta designs oral drugs aimed at KRAS mutations long considered undruggable - including G12D and G12V - that together drive a large share of pancreatic, colorectal, lung and endometrial cancers. Its lead candidate QTX3034 is in Phase 1 trials, with QTX3544 and a pan-KRAS program close behind.
Verge Genomics
Verge Genomics is a South San Francisco biotech that builds drugs from human biology instead of mouse models. By assembling one of the largest proprietary multi-omics datasets drawn directly from human brain and tissue samples, then mining it with machine learning, its CONVERGE platform identifies disease targets and drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, ALS-FTD and Parkinson's. Founded in 2015 by Alice Zhang and Jason Chen, the company famously moved its first AI-discovered drug from research to the clinic in four years. After that ALS candidate failed its early trial, Verge has refocused on its core asset, the platform, repositioning to supply other drug developers with human-grounded target data.